


silhouettes in the night

by sunshineriptiee



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders Needs a Hug, Gen, One Shot, Pre-Episode: Accepting Anxiety, Roman can't handle feelings, can be read as pre slash if that's how you want it, exploring how roman saw anxiety, inner emotional conflict, slight spoilers for dealing with intrusive thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 17:20:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19398805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshineriptiee/pseuds/sunshineriptiee
Summary: Roman had a tendency to see things quite black and white, it had always been so. The first challenge to his mindset came to him sat in a dark kitchen in the middle of the night.





	silhouettes in the night

**Author's Note:**

> So, I haven't posted fan fiction since around 2015 and I thought it was time to publish something new. After the latest sanders sides video I've been reading a lot of sanders sides fanfic and rewatching all the old videos, and threw together this lil thing, that I hope you'll enjoy!

Sigh. 

Roman put down his pen and buried his face in his hands. He was currently occupied with trying to follow what was happening in Thomas dream, so he could note it down. It was one of Romans assignments, to keep track of all of Thomas dreams and write them down and usually he would do that the morning after. But this night, since Roman hadn’t been able to fall asleep, he decided he could try writing down the dream as it went along. However, due to it’s fast paced nature and tendency to shift from one scene to another without any sort of warning, it was quite impossible for Roman to keep track of anything. 

He had tried to fall asleep, he really had, but there was just too much energy in him. A couple hours ago he felt tired, but then by the he was ready to go to sleep, his mind was wide awake. He tried to tire himself out by reading, counting sheep, pacing and finally when that all failed he turned to Thomas dreams, but he was still far from tired and now he needed another solution. 

Roman lifted his head out of his hands, stood up from the chair and marched out of his room. He could have just sunk out and popped up wherever he wanted to go, but he felt like wasting all the energy he could. He let his feet guide him just about anywhere, his eyes slowly getting used to the dark, until he made it down to the living room. 

Right as he was about to enter the kitchen, Roman stopped. In the dark somewhere, he had heard a noise. Someone else was there with him.

Roman had made sure to be very careful about not making any noise as he walked around, making sure to not disturb anyone. This meant that whoever was in the kitchen was probably not aware that Roman was there. He couldn’t see anyone, and therefore he drew the conclusion that whoever was in there was probably sitting down. He tried to think about who it was but Logan probably wouldn’t enjoy sitting on the floor, and Patton wouldn’t have had it this dark. Plus, they should both be asleep by now, but it has to be someone. 

He started to move towards the kitchen, peeking around the pillar and counters that was blocking his view to see someone, much like he guessed, sitting down on the floor. The person had their legs pressed against their stomach and their face hidden somewhere between their knees and arms. Their hair was a complete mess and hid the small part of their face that Roman should have been able to see. But what he did see was a pair of black pants and a hoodie. 

“Anxiety?” Romans lips moved faster than his mind, and the question just slipped out of him. 

The person, who indeed was Anxiety, quickly looked up when he heard Romans voice. His eyes went wide, and Roman could see how messed up Anxieties make up was, streaks of black over his face.

“What- what are you doing?” Roman asked and started to move forward, which he immediately understood wasn’t a very wise idea. Anxiety jumped to his feet, pressing himself against the counter, looking like a hunted animal. Roman was frozen where he stood, having absolutely no idea how to handle this situation. A part of Roman was shouting to himself, say something, or do something, but he could just stare at Anxiety who was frantically looking around, as if he was trying to find a way to escape the situation. But before Anxiety could even try to get away, Roman sunk out.

As soon as Roman appeared in his room, he regretted his actions. He had been scared off by the situation, he had no idea how he was supposed to handle it. As soon as he understood it would take more than just asking Anxiety what he was doing, get some sort of sarcastic response from him and then move on, his body had decided to shut down. And now he had left an obviously upset Anxiety alone in the middle of the night because Roman has been freaked out. He knew that now there was probably not much he could do now. Anxiety had almost certainly already fled back to his room, where Roman knew he wasn’t welcome, especially after tonight, but something was still tugging on him to go back. 

In the end Roman decided to try to go to bed, as he understood he would get nothing more productive done tonight. As he went to sleep, he tried to push away all the thoughts and images about Anxiety, all alone curled up against a kitchen counter in the middle of the night. He tried to find excuses for why Anxiety's make up was ruined and covered the sides whole face, because what his mind immediately went to was crying and Roman didn’t like to think about that. 

Romans way of viewing Anxiety had always been the same as he viewed all the dark sides, objectively they weren’t good for Thomas and didn’t mean him well, and therefore Roman did not like nor respect them. But seeing Anxiety tonight, Roman hadn’t even in his wildest imagination thought he’d find any of the dark sides like that. So he kept pushing away the thoughts, the feeling in his stomach and tried his best to get any rest. 

The day after he didn’t see Anxiety, and neither the one after that. When they finally did encounter again, Anxiety was full on ignoring Roman, and while he normally would Roman didn’t have it in him to feel annoyed. Truthfully, he felt a bit relieved that he wouldn’t have to endure the awkwardness that was sure to follow if they attempted to carry a conversation.

Slowly things went back to normal between them. They acknowledged each other, the fighting and nicknames came back and everything seemed to be as it was before. Except Roman couldn’t quite feel like before. He still saw Anxiety as a dark side who couldn’t be trusted, but now, every time Anxiety sunk out Roman couldn’t help but wonder, where did the other side go? What did he do? Did he ever end up alone in the kitchen, or anywhere else, in the middle of the night again? And would Roman have found out, if he just hadn’t been too scared to try and reach out?

**Author's Note:**

> There we go! I hope you enjoyed, and this didn't feel all too rushed. I've always been interested in seeing if Romans view of Virgil (feels so good to write Virgil again instead of Anxiety) was ever challenged pre-accepting anxiety, and it's just really interesting to explore Roman in general. Thanks a lot for reading, and any comments or kudos is highly appreciated!


End file.
